--On January 4, 2009 5:10:04 AM -0600 Alaa Abdelwahab
<alaa.abdelwahab@free.fr> wrote:
>> Maybe I will try to help more after 10 years from now by sending another> Map, and lets discuss then why the Palestinians didnâ€™t resist to> exist, if we will remember if there was a country called Palestine,> which used to own the whole green and white lands only 70 years ago>

It is a fact that throughout history conquering countries have taken over
land from their vanquished foes. The Ottomans were defeated and the
British took over what was known as the Palestinian Mandate after WWI.
(The French oversaw the Syrian Mandate.) After WWII, a portion of that
Mandate was set aside for Israel. You can claim those lands belong to
Palestinians all you want, but the fact is, the land was set aside through
the UN, and it now belongs to Israel. Afterwards, several Arab countries,
unhappy with the arrangement, started a war with Israel and lost. Israel
took some of that land as well, and could have kept it but eventually
returned most or all of it.

To now claim that Israelis are "guests" in Palestine is to deny the plain
facts of history and provide an excuse for continued armed conflict. What
the Arabs have failed to gain through conquest they now seek to gain
through deceit and propaganda, because it has become quite clear to them
that they cannot win in open conflict. They hope to use the benefit of
time and general ignorance to convince the world that the land belongs to
them and the Israelis should be thrown out.

What any of this has to do with security is an exercise for the reader,
but there you have it.

Paul Schmehl, If it isn't already
obvious, my opinions are my own
and not those of my employer.